The works of John Locke. To which is added the life of the author and a ...

to those which are permanent. In both these (viz. expansion and duration) the mind has this common idea of continued lengths, capable of greater or less quantities: for a man has as clear an idea of the difference of the length of an hour and a day, as of an inch and a foot.

§. 2. The mind, having got the idea of notbounded length of any Part of expansion, let it by matter. Dea span> ora pace, or what length you will, can, as has been said, repeat that idea; and so, adding it to the former, enlarge its idea of length, and make it equal to two spans, or two paces, and so as often as it will, till it equals the distance of any parts of the earth one from another, and increase thus, till it amounts to the distance of the sun, or remotest star. By such a progression as this, setting out from the place where it is, or any other place, it can proceed and pass beyond all those lengths, and find nothing to stop its going on, either in, or without body. It is true, we can easily in our thoughts come to the end of solid extension; the extremity and bounds of all body we have no difficulty to arrive at: but when the mind is there, it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless expansion; of that it can neither find nor conceive any end. Nor let any one say, that beyond the bounds of body, there is nothing at all, unless he will confine God within the limits of matter. Solomon, whose understanding was filled and enlarged with wisdom, seems to have other thoughts, when he says," heaven, and "the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee:" and he, I think, very much magnifies to himself the capacity of his own understanding, who persuades himself, that he can extend his thoughts farther than God exists, or imagine any expansion where he is not. Nor dura- §. 3. Just so is it in duration. The mind, tion by mo- having got the idea of any length of duration. tion, can double, multiply, and enlarge it, not only beyond its own, but beyond the existence of all corporeal beings, and all the measures of time, taken from the great bodies of the world, and their motions. But yet every one easily admits, that though we make

duration boundless, as certainly it is, we cannot yet extend it beyond all being. God, every one easily allows, fills eternity; and it is hard to find a reason, why any one should doubt, that he likewise fills immensity. His infinite being is certainly as boundless one way as another; and methinks it ascribes a little too much to matter, to say, where there is no body, there is nothing.

§. 4. Hence, I think, we may learn the wliy. men reason why every one familiarly, and with- more easily out the least hesitation, speaks of, and sup- admit infiposes eternity, and sticks not to ascribe in- mtedTM«|ti?n finity to duration; but it is with more expansion*6 doubting and reserve, that many admit, or suppose the infinity of space. The reason whereof seems to me to be this, that duration and extension being used as names of affections belonging to other beings, we easily conceive in God infinite duration, and we cannot avoid doing so: but not attributing to him extension, but only to matter, which is finite, we are apter to doubt of the existence of expansion without matter; of which alone we commonly suppose it an attribute. And therefore when men pursue their thoughts of space, they are apt to stop at the confines of body; as if space were there at an end too, and reached no farther. Or if their ideas upon consideration carry them farther, yet they term what is beyond the limits of the universe imaginary space; as if it were nothing, because there is no body existing in it. Whereas duration, antecedent to all body, and to the motions which it is measured by,they never term imaginary; because it is never supposed void of some other real existence. And if the names of things may at all direct our thoughts towards the originals of men's ideas (as 1 am apt to think they may very much) one may have occasion to think by the name duration, that the continuation of existence, with a kind of resistance to any destructive force, and the continuation of solidity (which is apt to be confounded with, and, if we will look into the minute anatomical parts of matter, is little different from, hardness) were thought to have some analogy, and gave occasion to

words, so near of kin as durare and durum esse. And that durare is applied to the idea of hardness, as well as that of existence, we see in Horace, epod. xvi. "ferro duravit secula." But be that as it will, this is certain, that whoever pursues his own thoughts, will find them sometimes launch out beyond the extent of body into the infinity of space or expansion; the idea whereof is distinct and separate from body, and all other things; which may (to those who please) be a subject of farther meditation.

Time to du- §' 5. Time in general is to duration, as ration is as place to expansion. They are so much of place to those boundless oceans of eternity and imexpansion. mensijy, as isse^ ou^ an(j distinguished from the rest, as it were by land-marks: and so are made use of to denote the position of finite real beings, in respect one to another, in those uniform infinite oceans of duration and space. These rightly considered are only ideas of determinate distances, from certain known points fixed in distinguishable sensible things, and supposed to keep the same distance one from another. From such points fixed in sensible beings we reckon, and from them we measure our portions of those infinite quantities; which, so considered, are that which we call time and place. For duration and space being in themselves uniform and boundless, the order and position of things, without such known settled points, would be lost in them; and all things would lie jumbled in an incurable confusion.

Time and §' 6. Time and place, taken thus for placeare ta- determinate distinguishable portions of ken for so those infinite abysses of space and duration,

ther^as^re set out, or supposed to be distinguished setoutbythe from the rest by marks, and known bounexistence daries, have each of them a two-fold ac

and motion ceptation.

o oa.es. First, Time in general is commonly taken for so much of infinite duration, as is measured by, and co-existent with the existence and motions of the great bodies of the universe, as far as we know any thing of them:
and in this sense time begins and ends with the frame of this sensible world, as in these phrases before-mentioned, before all time, or when time shall be no more. Place likewise is taken sometimes for that portion of infinite space, which is possessed by, and comprehended within the material world; and is thereby distinguished from the rest of expansion; though this may more properly be called extension, than place. Within these two are confined, and by the observable parts of them are measured and determined, the particular time or duration, and the particular extension and place, of all corporeal beings.

§. 7. Secondly, Sometimes the word time Sometimes is used in a larger sense, and is applied to for so much parts of that infinite duration, not that were of either, as really distinguished and measured out by wedes,gnby

. . J.? , . . Jmeasuresta

this real existence, and periodical motions ken from the of bodies that were appointed from the bulk or mobeginning to be for signs, and for seasons, tjpu of bound for days, and years, and are accord- ies' ingly our measures of time: but such other portions too of that infinite uniform duration, which we, upon any occasion, do suppose equal to certain lengths of measured time; and so consider them as bounded and determined. For if we should suppose the creation, or fall of the angels, was at the beginning of the Julian period, we should speak properly enough, and should be understood, if we said, it is a longer time since the creation of angels, than the creation of the world, by seven thousand six hundred and forty years: whereby we would mark out so much of that undistinguished duration, as we suppose equal to, and would have admitted seven thousand six hundred and forty annual revolutions of the sun, moving at the rate it now does* And thus likewise we sometimes speak of place, distance, or bulk, in the great inane beyond the confines of the world, when we consider so much of that space as is equal to, or capable to receive a oody of any assigned dimensions, as a cubic foot; or do suppose a point in it at such a certain distance from any part of the universe.

Theybelong §. 8. Where and when are questions betoall beings. longing to all finite existences, and are by us always reckoned from some known parts of this sensible world, and from some certain epochs marked out to us by the motions observable in it. Without some such fixed parts or periods, the order of things would be"k>st to our finite understandings, in the boundless invariable oceans of duration and expansion; which comprehend in them all finite beings, and in their full extent belong only to the Deity. And therefore we are not to wonder that we comprehend them not, and do so often find our thoughts at a loss, when we would consider them either abstractly in themselves, or as any way attributed to the first incomprehensible being. But when applied to any particular finite beings, the extension of any body is so much of that infinite space, as the bulk of the body takes up. And place is the position of any body, when considered at a certain distance from some other. As the idea of the particular duration of any thing is an idea of that portion of infinite duration, which passes during the existence of that thing; so the time when the thing existed is the idea of that space of duration which passed between some known and fixed period of duration, and the being of that thing. One shows the distance of the extremities of the bulk or existence of the same thing, as that it is a foot square, or lasted two years; the other shows the distance of it in place, or existence, from other fixed points of space or duration, as that it was in the middle of Lincoln's-inn-fields, or the first degree of Taurus, and in the year of our Lord 1671, or the 1000 year of the Julian period: all which distances we measure by pre-conceived ideas of certain lengths of space and duration, as inches, feet, miles, and degrees; and in the other, minutes, days, and years, &c. Allthe parts §. There is one thing more wherein of extension space and duration have a great conforareexten- mity; and that is, though they are justly the1'^ of rec^one^ amongst our simple ideas, yet duration are none of the distinct ideas we have of duration. either is without all manner of com-